Introductory Note:
Modern writers often share personal stories and feelings. Done well it helps bridge theory and practice. These heart-on-your-sleeve style authors ignite my own desire for a more authentic faith.
Lately though I’m moved by another style of writing, the kind where the author shares little regarding him or herself. It is easy for this kind of writing to become aloof and academic. When instead it is full of warmth, clarity, and conviction, it bears the mark of a classic. Though the author is absent in the text he is not absent from it. The writing has authority, “not as the scribes,” because the words have long been lived before they were written. Richard Foster’s work has that quality.
Brian Morykon
Jesus Christ is alive today in power and wants to be your present teacher. Sermons and church services are not sufficient to bring you into the new life of obedience and power that God wants for you. Jesus will be with you and teach you constantly day and night. To begin this exciting experiment, you do not even need to have all the correct doctrines or believe all the right things — all you need is a longing to know God. If you listen, He will teach you. His voice is not hard to hear. His vocabulary is not hard to understand.
Jesus Christ wants to share with you His living power so that you are able to come into total obedience to His way of righteousness. He wants to bring you out of the old ways of sin and rebellion and into the new ways of life and obedience. He desires to set you free from all slavery, the lust for status, the opinions of others, the cancer of anger, and all forms of disobedience to God. He will teach you how to live and fill you with His mighty love so you can live that way.
Jesus Christ wants to bring you into His new community that is ordered and governed by Him. This new people gathered to God by Christ are to learn together, obey together, witness together, and suffer together. This new community may be found in present church groups; it may also be found outside of them. Jesus Christ, your present Teacher will guide you to other people who are listening to His voice and obeying His Word. The most prominent characteristics of this new community of God will be compassion, trust, and sharing.
This new life is a wonderful liberation, but it is also costly. It will cost you everything that is in opposition to God’s way of life and righteousness. All idolatries must be abandoned. All “easy believisms” that leave the tenor of your life untouched are not the gospel that Jesus Christ brings. He calls for unconditional allegiance, total obedience. What does that mean specifically for you? In this, as in all things, Jesus Christ will be your present Teacher and tell you. He desires to counsel you, lead you, teach you, rule you, govern you.
Perhaps you may ask, “How do I come into this new life with God?” There is no human scheme, no three easy steps, that will make this happen. It is a work of the Spirit of Christ in your life. Begin today by asking Him to be your living and ever present Teacher. Listen to Him day and night. Confess every sin and forsake everything that opposes His way. Obey Him in everything He instructs you to do and live in His new Life and Light. In this way you will come into the new life with God in Christ.
Originally published in Crescent, Oct. 1977.
Text First Published October 1977 · Last Featured on Renovare.org December 2021
